| Redman | Monday, June 4, 2012 - 06:14 am 
Have you ever tried to play and run a stand alone ceo? Without an empire and countries tied to it you can not run an enterprise. It's just about impossible. They no longer make profit enough to sustain growth. Without sucking money from your account and empires, try growing a ceo. You just about can't.
If not for them being needed to go up in game levels and intertwine with your empire I would get rid of mine. They are to much trouble to maintain and operate. The updates and shrinking of profit make them way to much to even want to worry about. Running hundreds of corporations should generate more then 80 billion profit. You know it and I know. God forbid you have many weapons corps to help your empire war machine because you'd be lucky to clear 20 billion in profit.
Running an active CEo with 400 corps should generate enough profit to make it worth while and grow you enterprise more. Or even allow you to move money from your ceo to your fledgeling countries or war machine or even space. That is not the case. It is a burden to run a ceo, yes a burden!
Space corps? yeah right! With shuttles running at 4GC's they are not worth resources to contemplate building. This game is to complicated not to be able to make money.
The cost of material supplies and operations for corps simply does not allow for hopes of profitability. The front end cost for corps already kills any back end profit. Ceo's are simply to big and time consuming to want to deal with the miniscule profit they provide, if you can get profit at all. They are simply not worth the effort.
In keeping big players from making a killing the game has killed the Enterprise. If you can't run one stand alone then It's not worth running. I challenge the gm's to run one by itself. Tell me if it's worth your time.
Regards,
red |
| Marshal Ney | Monday, June 4, 2012 - 08:59 am
+1 |
| Lord Lee | Monday, June 4, 2012 - 02:46 pm
My Enterprise on LU: AAA made 384.97B last game month  |
| NiAi | Monday, June 4, 2012 - 05:06 pm
From 350Bish per month before the massacre of CEO incomes. Now ~50B per month.
It might be working as intended, but then TS is quite right. |
| Christopher Michael | Monday, June 4, 2012 - 05:15 pm
+1
I wouldn't have any part of operating them if they were not so intertwined with my empires.
They have become a nuisance. |
| SLAYEROFGODS | Monday, June 4, 2012 - 06:40 pm
I agree! the last 2 or 3 weeks my enterprise went from a Nominal Value of about 250 down to 171. I am a fairly new player but i dont think i have done anything that wrong to have almost lost half the value of my corporations. |
| Andy | Monday, June 4, 2012 - 10:28 pm
The main question is:
are they contributing to your countries.
how much do they pay each game month?
In nearly all cases they are very profitable.
Their market value is not a major issue.
It has no influence on your cash at all.
In the past months they went up and down a lot.
we expect corporations to stabilize, with an improved PE ratio (lower) so that more corporations can go public.
This is already taking place and many more corporations can go public.
If corporations stabilize, enterprises will too. |
| Marshal Ney | Monday, June 4, 2012 - 10:53 pm
Market value for corporations is important for standing off corporate raids, and nationalization.
With the drop in market value, are there any plans to reduce the SC$ in circulation? |
| SLAYEROFGODS | Monday, June 4, 2012 - 11:04 pm
Oh ya they are contributing to my country's for sure!
I wouldn't really mind if people wanted to nationalize some of my corps anymore, 90% of my corps are in my empire and I wouldn't mind only having corps in my own country's. |
| Phoenix King | Tuesday, June 5, 2012 - 12:57 am
Nope not me, my enterprise is quite profitable and it is not only making money but also contributing money, are you veterans sure your running your enterprise the right way! What strategies are you using! each corp should produce 1\2 a billion right now on average. 200 will produce 100B in profit a month. of that 5-10B should be going into your eneterprise cash flow. thats for 200 corps and at only 5% transfer of profit. at 10-25% transfer you should be getting 10-35B a month. |
| Phoenix King | Tuesday, June 5, 2012 - 01:03 am
Also in the above senario you should have production at or above 117% and corporate welfare at or above 117. |
| SLAYEROFGODS | Tuesday, June 5, 2012 - 01:47 am
I know what I'm doing Wrong now! I looked at Lord Lee's enterprise AAA |
| Orbiter | Tuesday, June 5, 2012 - 02:11 am
I'm with PK, (?) on this. my ceo's are rather new, and early on, i noticed the old strats aren't working. tried a couple of new things, and a couple of old things i hadn't tried before... i'm pretty statisfied with my growing profits.
but basically, what PK said is true. if the old isn't working, try something new. if your corps are making a profit, then you will be making money. if you jack you sals to max to max out your prodcutions, taxes, and ceo resources... then you are still making money, just not in your ceo.
could you imagine what would happen, if W3C, (free of bidding fees,) nationalized every CEO? you'd have a very serious Sim problem.
not to mention, CEOs are fun by themselves. the very first thing i ever signed up for in sc was a CEO. |
| Redman | Tuesday, June 5, 2012 - 03:52 am
I bet you my country Lord LEE That if you have 400 corps you are not making 386 billion a month. That is nonsense. You have many more corps then that Lord Lee. With over 1000 corps I'm glad and certainly hope you make that much. Not too many players have ceo's that big and not the average player for sure. How much Enterprise Tax is the being charged to your Ceo? A lot.
My Ceo's play a very very important roll in my empire Andy and they are the reason I do as well as I do. Without them I would not be where I'm at. I do not disagree with you orbiter, but they are not fun anymore. Sorry. We need them. They make our empires what the are, but constantly having to adjust and watch when you have empires on 3 worlds(which I remind you, IS what the game wants from you)and Ceo's attached to them all is getting old. And having to do this with the tiniest of profit is far, far from fun during this era of "The Update".
I need my ceo and do enjoy having the benefits from them, but man I can not wait until this "shrinking" is done and it hits the bottom becoming more stable again on a more permanent basis.
I know how to run my ceo PK. That is not the point, but you are right and very correct in that you can still make some profit and the old strats do no longer work. over the long haul your formula will not be correct. It will change and morph into something else, then It will do so again until the these updates are done.
In addition I'd like to see anyone's ceo making 100 bil a month with just 200 corps. List them so that I may look. I will follow your advice and be much happier. : D |
| Orbiter | Tuesday, June 5, 2012 - 05:15 am
well, back to the new ideas thing
step back, and start all over. assume everything you've been taught is wrong, because it is!! if its not working, it is broken |
| Pat Quinn | Tuesday, June 5, 2012 - 07:15 am
Are enterprise corporations at a severe disadvantage compared to country corporations? I recently sold 3 companies to my new CEO, and what happened? profits completely dissapeared, went from 500M profit to 10M profit per month. Instantly. For all 3 corps. I'm now thinking I want to sell them back to my country, and unregister my CEO. |
| Pat Quinn | Tuesday, June 5, 2012 - 06:07 pm
I think my sudden change was partly related to the corps being able to upgrade beyond 200 and the costs associated with buying more upgrades. So, my comment above may be a bit of red herring. |
| Marshal Ney | Wednesday, June 6, 2012 - 01:13 am
Buying max of both upgrades will quickly evaporate profitability in corporations in most locations. If you can ride it out, they should return to profitability when maxed. |
| Drew | Wednesday, June 6, 2012 - 05:16 am
Marshal only with a completely debunked market stabilty which does occur. Corps take too much too supply for their output. If that was fixed that corps would have to compete in several different ways, BUT as it is, the ONLY way for CEO's to make profit seems to be by maximizing quality. I think there needs to be some re-evaluating with many aspects of this game. It is still hard for CEO's, and the statement is true. I think you can make a CEO profitable but it really isn't worth the hassle. +1 |
| Marshal Ney | Wednesday, June 6, 2012 - 08:30 am
They can be profitable. Those upgrades cost. If you max each one out every month, your profit is gone until that's finished. Need to either be a little more selective in their purchasing, or take the loss and get them to max.
I don't disagree with maxing. Just pointing out that's what I think happened to Mr. Quinn's profits. Same thing happened to mine, now I'm slowing down which ones I'm maxing. Still maxing, but not at breakneck speed. |
| Drew | Wednesday, June 6, 2012 - 11:28 am
But that shouldn't be the only way, I know too max, but what about supply corps? Also if they fixed certain things they can make this game fun and competitive. Like ok, pricing/cost/quality matrices, you SHOULD be able to compete on price, OR quality not just quality. When the only way to make a profit is too race to the MAX point then the game simply becomes a chore, that's not interesting thats not skilful. But to stay on topic that's what enterprises need to do too stay viable, what's the point? The game needs to stay fun and interesting to retain players, and if all enterprises get to do is manage corps and shares and their only goal is too make money and there is only one way too make money the game will become systematic and boring, especially with low profits making it more difficult to enhance the more entertaining pieces of the game like running countries. |
| Craigsw | Wednesday, June 6, 2012 - 05:11 pm
Yes, it would be nice if my corps were a little more profitable. I expanded quickly (had the reserves to do so) and am racing to the max. Many of my maxed corps make very little profit. |
| Marshal Ney | Wednesday, June 6, 2012 - 06:03 pm
Supply corps - you're trading profitability for a guaranteed supply of contracted goods and services. Anytime you go off the free market, you're losing potential profit and in a competitive environment that will quickly turn into real losses.
The policy I'm presently following is to have a large domestic market to generate economies of scale, and once raised to unleash them on the world market.
Import substitution economies don't work. Case in point, Argentina. From one of the top 10 richest countries in the world, to third-world status.
While managing corporations and shares are the main instruments of running an Enterprise, the GM has intimated that they will be allowed into the war game. So mercenaries may revive any flagging interest. |
| Drew | Thursday, June 7, 2012 - 10:53 pm
Not even true dude, I'm gaurenteeing a lower COGS the concept is called vertical integration. A perfectly valid real world endeavor. The free market is flawed. Why buy a 190 quality supply for upto 390 when I can buy it for 190? Anywho that's not the point of the thread this is off topic. Vertical integration works and you should definately run your own supply lines when the supplies needed are in deep shortages. They suffer big time with corps having such low contribution margins, when companies like Microsoft can pull in like 60%. |
| Pat Quinn | Thursday, June 7, 2012 - 11:15 pm
Vertical Integration is a fools errand in this game, for sure. |
| Drew | Friday, June 8, 2012 - 11:34 pm
With that logic the common market is also a fool's errand. Not saying it isn't, but if that is the case then this really needs to be fixed right? If it doesn't work to feed your own supplies because profits are too low then why does the common market exist? too screw over your trade allies? |
| Marshal Ney | Monday, June 11, 2012 - 05:50 am
The common market is not a fool's errand. The way it is utilized however, is.
Vertical Integration - I'll look into it. But again, supplying those at 190 to yourself, and foregoing selling the same for 390 is a loss of profitability. It all depends upon your corporations and supplies. I'm looking into militaristic mercantilism myself. |
| Lord Lee | Monday, June 11, 2012 - 01:50 pm
Profits going up in Enterprise:
AAA on Little Upsilon made $594.56B last game month and on average is making about $500B a game month.
Lord Lee |
| jansen | Tuesday, June 12, 2012 - 03:00 am
im making severe negative profits with 100 corps id like to see some changes as i play pure CEO |
| Pat Quinn | Thursday, June 14, 2012 - 11:48 pm
SO, I was thinking, that a 100-120Q Electric Power and 100-120Q Factory maintenance wouldn't be unprofitable, and would be a solid way to start your variable supply quality trading strategy through vertical integration. Thoughts? |
| Phoenix King | Friday, June 15, 2012 - 04:06 am
dont ry vertical intergration in this sim, not a good way to make profits but it is a good way to have stable inventory. |
| Crafty | Friday, June 15, 2012 - 05:21 pm
Horizontal differentation.
The only way to go ;P |
| Drew | Saturday, June 16, 2012 - 06:10 pm
I'm not gonna argue really, because in this sim you guys are right. Why make a corp with limited profitibility when you can instead make a corp of the most profitible industry at the time? But if you think of the big picture in terms of every corp on the planet it causes market stability. One way or another you need supplies they cost money, you can control that cost. If they are unprofitable that sucks, if you are capable of cutting costs more to your profit centers then the loss it is a sound investment. But since this isn't always the case in which the loss can be larger the same holds true about the common market, they sell to their trade partners for a reduced rate, essentially crushing their profitability the exact same way as if you creating a corp to replace them. This all leads back to the intent of this thread. Independent (control) costs are too high for corps that not only make supply corps and the common market completely unusable and not only creates a major instability in the markets, but also makes it much more profitable to use state corps in the place of enterprise corps. Not in respect to the country but in respect to the corporations profitibility in the end that is what matters. Because the incentive of the CEO has vanished with the exception of higher game levels and sheer volume. I don't attribute this to CRU like most others but excessive inputs to supply the outputs of corporations. How many steaks does one cow make? Now if the steak also requires a trillion services, and 1 million Kwatts of power, can the steak really be a profitable industry? This was an exaggeration obviously and steak isn't an idustry (i simply didn't want to do the math). Andy said somewhere that he will make moves to increase profitibility but lowering output in certain industries like for exaple the recent reductions in FMU's and production plants don't increase profitibility because they are industries that will merely suffer those losses. Since profit margins are spread so thin, and my state corps have been making bills a month and my enterprises sometimes touch 800m but usually fall between 350-550m there's a little dissonance there. a corp takes like 67B to start up 67000/300=18.6111 years too pay for itself with minimal profits afters that. Cutting CRU at that end will just end the incentive for countries, lowering fixed costs will make the game unrealistic. The only ways to fix this VERY REAL problem is for corps to increase their outputs further in comparison to other costs for enterprises or decrease needed supply volume. To cement my point think about the world market, with infinite money and employees how many corps at 100% would it take to balance the supply and demand? YEAH, a ton because each one you make supplies nearly the exact amount in demand for other products. |
| Marshal Ney | Saturday, June 16, 2012 - 10:31 pm
Just remember one thing about basic economics - the creation of wealth. Enterprises and corporations are third rate cousins at wealth creation, no matter where they are located. Countries and the war game is where wealth creation (ie input from outside the player base) shines. That's why I'm dropping economics in favor of mercantilism.
Market stability via the creation of corporations is a pipe dream. Even if enough corporations were created, prices will still fluctuate wildly in certain products, and that will increase in the future. Too many recessionary changes without corresponding fiscal policy have ensured that market cornering and dumping will continue to proliferate. The drops in corporate value needs to be balanced with a reduction in the monetary supply in proportion to the loss of value. While I am sure all the long term veterans have worked hard to get to where they are at - multiplying their game advantage by these measures is a slap in the face of everyone else. There are really no measures I can see to prevent that - even though in real life, cornering a market is extremely hard to do, as the Hunt brothers learned to their sorrow. We have spending limits already, implementing selling limits would help market stability immensely. (and I applaud the US for their recent efforts in this area.)
I no longer really care if the Enterprises I run make a profit or not, as I'm setting up to be able to sustain trillion dollar per game month losses. And that isn't hard to do under the present system - if you run a country. Then you can be the market's master - instead of it's slave. |
| Phoenix King | Sunday, June 17, 2012 - 08:15 am
Try to get your production levels above 115% all the way to 121% you should be able to make alot more profit. |
| Tom Morgan | Sunday, June 17, 2012 - 10:12 am
I don't play CEOs for fun. I play them to supplement my empire, and I find that I can leave a CEO for a week without even bothering to check in, and it will have made a few trillion. Boom. Easy money. It's easily worth it. If it ain't being profitable, then change some trade strats, relocate some corps, tweak some settings, and we're set.
Just a question- what does everyone else have as their default salary? Mine's 225 but if hiring is lower than usual I raise the amount for an individual corp. |
| Crafty | Sunday, June 17, 2012 - 06:01 pm
Lol, we used to run corps at 1000 - 1200 salary here a while back. |
| Christopher Michael | Sunday, June 17, 2012 - 06:03 pm
Yep....things sure have changed. |
| dboyd3702 | Monday, June 18, 2012 - 12:26 am
You should be able to make profit just by selling products that are in a constant high demand, however from what I see the GM still has a heavy hand in the buy and sell values.
I just took a look at Books and Newspapers for instance, over the last nineteen months demand on WG has never been able to catch up to supply (The best was 13 months ago at about a shortage of 880M) yet the price follows a very obvious pricing pattern of down, down, down, up, down, down, down, down, up and repeat. Why is the price going down at all (Not to mention most other products in short fall follow the same pattern)? |
| Christopher Michael | Monday, June 18, 2012 - 01:43 am
Andy said a mouth full when he stated on another thread that "Fair price is not always the free market."
Though he was talking about gold coin exchange rates, it is obvious that this philosophy is also occurring on the world markets.
They are not letting supply and demand dictate pricing.....that is more clear now than it ever was.
SOURCE THREAD: Why aren't there any gold coins to trade for game money available? (Little Upsilon) |
| SuperSoldierRCP | Monday, June 18, 2012 - 02:31 am
I agree with crafty
I used to run 1100salaries in all corps and make 151% production with a PROFIT of a few Billion
I HAD NUKE CORPS TURNING A PROFIT!!!(thats hard) now you barely can do 500 without busting the bank |
| dboyd3702 | Monday, June 18, 2012 - 02:37 am
And the countries made a profit as well... |
| Marshal Ney | Wednesday, June 20, 2012 - 03:09 am
As a related question, what happened to the service industry at that time? I note that in doc's the GM's reserve the right to enter into that market.
Was there a cabal of people manipulating the markets? |
